Reflections on Studying the Past – Meddyliau ar Astudio'r Gorffennol
** Unfortunately, due to very poor weather conditions forecast for tomorrow Saturday 2nd October, our Community event has been cancelled. We hope to rearrange something for next Spring.** Please join us for a creative and activity-filled morning at the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks on Saturday 2nd October 10am-1pm. We are working in partnership with People Speak Up and a … Read more
The nineteenth century was a time of significant change across rural Wales. Plagued with socio-political unrest, a series of factors laid the foundations for a series of uprisings known as the Rebecca Riots. The upper classes controlled all government and local parliaments, allowing for oppressive laws to be introduced and passed without resistance. The Turnpike … Read more
In an earlier blogpost I sketched the history of the city partnership between Swansea and Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg, Germany), from its establishment in the 1950s. That blog focused in particular on the creation of a monument to the partnership, a miniature replica of the German city’s main landmark, which was erected in Swansea in 1985. Since … Read more
Sam Blaxland The former England cricket captain, Ted Dexter, died on 26th August 2021, aged 86. This article, about a peculiar event in his career, originally featured in the 2016 edition of the Conservative History Journal. In 1964 the electorate of Cardiff South East faced the unusual situation of having the England cricket captain as … Read more
Dissertations are the culmination of an exhilarating journey which invariably demands days lost to fascinating yet redundant research, but which is also rich with discovery and presents fresh perspectives of the world we thought we knew. This construction of history as we know it became central to my research. How have we interpreted our past, … Read more
The persistent legacies of colonial domination have become a flashpoint in recent years. On the one hand, movements like Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall have provided a platform through which we can analyse how structural hangovers from imperialism continue to impact on the lives of underrepresented groups. On the other, that observation alone … Read more
One of Swansea’s least well-known monuments stands in the city’s Maritime Quarter. Formerly the site of the docks that facilitated much of the industrial activity upon which Swansea thrived in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, this quarter was redeveloped into a residential district in the 1970s and 80s. In the part … Read more
Professor Martin Johnes recently gave an online talk for the genealogy website FindmyPast about using the census to understand the history of the Welsh language. Drawing upon his research into the role of education in the decline of Welsh in the late 19th century, Martin explored how the census collected language data, questions around its … Read more
In this short video, you can watch Dr Emma Cavell discuss the impact of the Black Death on Wales. Dr Cavell is a historian of the central Middle Ages with a particular interest in questions of gender. Her current research concentrates on Jewish men and women and the law.
Dr Matthew Stevens’ book, The Economy of Medieval Wales, 1067-1536 has been attracting some glowing reviews recently. The book examines the economy of Wales from the first Norman intrusions of 1067 to the Act of Union of England and Wales in 1536. Key themes include the evolution of the agrarian economy; the foundation and growth … Read more